Taming and Animal Care (As they are now) Should be Crafting Skills

[Kaemik]

Just going to bring this one back to the forefront since we are getting taming next week. We also now have a VERY nice tool to illustrate my point now though.

Say I want to be a tamer/archer. Lets look at this skillmap:



Just a quick dirty build with the essential movements, all the archery skills, and all the combat relevent pet skills (Notice animal taming and creature care are not among them). If I was more serious about this build I'd refine it more but already:

I wasn't able to max anatomy which is an important skill for kiters.
This build has no endurance which is really useful for a kiter/archer build.
This build has no survival which would play off it's veela clade gifts nicely in making it a superb swimmer. If you don't think being good at swimming is good for a veela kiter, you clearly haven't played veela.
This build has no defensive stance which is just a generally useful skill.
And this build is really close to being melee-viable at least as a dedicated harasser. I could make it melee viable with an additional 200 points.
I could also pick up controlled riding and mounted archery with an additional 200 points.

So while I'm sure people will come in and say "You can drop____" and you surely can for some skills. There are many skills in the queue I'm going to give priority over what are essentially crafting skills.

Where is the room for taming and animal care? On my alt. That's where everyone is going to find room for taming if they are smart. It's a no-brainer choice. Combat relevant skills vs. combat irrelevant skills. That isn't a decision anyone but a hyper-casual carebear needs to consider for more than half a second.

"Well it's a good thing! There will be less tamers"

Really? Because everyone's crafting alt can now pick up taming and theivery without distracting from their crafting capabilities. Sounds like there will just be very few tamer mains, but TONS of tamers. Like if I get a 2nd account it will almost surely be a max speed Alvarin tamer/butcher/thief. Tamer, thief and movement on the action line. Butcher and zoology skills under professions.

 

[Kaemik]

For the particularly thick-headed, the above post is not arguing I SHOULDN'T have to make hard choices about what skills to put in the build. It's arguing that only an utter fool would make taming and animal care two of them if they care about their combat effectiveness. That build gains zero more combat strength by taking them and has to give up skillpoints that already require hard choices in terms of how they should be allocated.

Meanwhile making an alt to do it requires zero in-game sacrifices.

 

[lord_yoshi]

Hold up, are you saying that two characters can do more than one character? This changes everything.

 

[Kaemik]

Hold up, are you saying that two characters can do more than one character? This changes everything.

No. I'm saying you NEED a 2nd account to be a tamer or thief without nerfing your combat main. This is not true for any other roles in the game because every other role either IS a combat role or is appropriately classified as a profession. If I want to be a fighter and a weaponsmith I can do so perfectly fine with zero negative impact on my fighter's viability and like maybe a few lost skillpoints on the weaponsmith end (Not nearly as big of a deal for a crafter as a fighter) that still leave it completely usable. It's absolutely confounding that distinction is not glaringly obvious to everyone. How could anyone not understand how HUGE of a distinction that is?

 

[Magestica]

Can I ask a few question --
A - How are you going to tame a bear or any other predator without the ability to melee fight, are there traps in the game ?
B - If and it seems to me OP is kind of correct, BUT what will that lack of extra taming skills have if we are to become dominator mages and in the later game, surely the tamer is linked with magic rather than melee combat anyway ?

 

[Jatix]

support. I thought of this last night. Taming is like trading. You can craft an armor set and trade it. You can tame a pet and trade it. Dom cant be traded, there for it doesnt need to be a profession skill.

 

[Magestica]

support. I thought of this last night. Taming is like trading. You can craft an armor set and trade it. You can tame a pet and trade it. Dom cant be traded, there for it doesnt need to be a profession skill.

This is how i understood it .. Domination is magic and thereby taming is not necessary, nor thereby zoology perhaps ? Why would someone want to become a dominator tamer then, unless taming is a profession to make money from, which is what the Op is kind of saying no ?

On these grounds taming is the crafting profession, and perhaps zoology is merely the TYPE of creature your profession focuses on like say weapon smith - bows and daggers specialisation.

May I also highlight that at this time everyone is having to train all round skills as we have no ability to focus on a couple of things due to there being no auction house. Making steel takes 28 skill books.

 

[Xunila]

Zoology is required for both taming and domination! You need a high (maxed) zoology lore to get high level pets. Animals like spiders can be dominated but not tamed. If you would like to play a beast master with all types of animals you could skill taming and domination, use taming to earn money from sold horses and fight with heavy animals.

 

[Necromantic]

Nobody know how it will work this time but back in the days Dominate worked the exact same way as taming, same skills applied etc., aside of being able to get more variety of stronger pets and being unable to trade dominated creatures.

 

[MinoHunter]

i get what ur saying and agree but i dont wanna see every figter mage and hybrid running round with pokemon ...... thats the moment i started to loose intrest in mo1 pvp

 

[Kaemik]

i get what ur saying and agree but i dont wanna see every figter mage and hybrid running round with pokemon ...... thats the moment i started to loose intrest in mo1 pvp

This would not make creature control builds any more powerful. Currently tamers are being balanced around 200 points of skills that are 100% optional. This actually makes creature control more powerful if they drop those points in the current system. If these 200 points are properly classified as a profession then it makes no sense to treat them like they are actually part of the build and balance around that.

 

[Shiroi]

Hey guys. I'm new to the forum and relatively new to MO and sorry if this thread is too old, but I thought that this issue was important so I wanted to add my 2 cents.

To get straight to the point, I fully agree with OPs logic and I don't understand how this is not obvious to everyone.

Like I said, I'm new to the game so my knowledge is very limited and I don't want to get into a semantic argument, but I feel that the whole Action vs Professional skills naming is wrong.
Instead, I think it should be simply be called Combat Skills and Non-Combat Skills. It would make the distinction a lot easier to understand as well as more clear-cut from a gameplay mechanics point of view.

Currently, all of Action skills contribute directly to one's fighting abilities DURING combat except for Taming, Animal Care and I would even add to that Herding as well.
So nobody who's serious about combat/PVP should waste 200 to 300 points in those skills. Especially since pets can be purchased and used equally efficiently regardless of who tamed them.
So the only thing the current system does is punish people like OP and myself (I must admit), who enjoy going out in the wild and tame their own pets either to sell or use in combat later on. Not unlike a swordsmith who enjoys making their own swords to either sell or use themselves in combat.

Someone mentioned that unlike other crafts where you have to take the mats to town and use a work bench before you can make something ready for combat, that you can tame a pet in the wild and just use it right away,

While that's true, you make it sound way easier than it actually is.
To tame a decent pet, say a black bear for example, you would have to first fight the damn thing and put into mercy mode then start the taming process which takes like ten or fifteen seconds. Then if you have succeeded, you have to heal it and bring it back to full health and of course not forget to feed it to bring it's loyalty up.
Believe me, it's not funny when you heal your brand new bear to full health only for it to start attacking you a few minutes later and ends up killing you just because you forgot to feed it. I would know

My point is, the Taming process still takes time (even if you don't need to go back to town) and it's something that you DEFINITLY cannot do mid-combat.

Secondly, all crafting is not created equal in this game. Some crafts are much harder compared to others and require much more time to make anything decent. But that's not an excuse to move the easier crafts into Action skills.

Finally, I wouldn't mind if they made the Taming process a little more complex and time consuming. Not only to be fair to other crafts but it could also be more fun and engaging.
Imagine if you had to go through a training phase for your pet after you initially tame it in order for it to be fully functional for whatever you need it to do. Be it combat, riding or even as a mule.
You could for example be required to know that particular animal's favorite food (not just meat vs plants but more specific than that) and that you would have to give it treats as it performs certain actions successfully. Not unlike how we train dogs in real life.
Only after you have successfully trained your pet to a decent level will you be able to use it or even sell it for a decent amount of gold.
Again, this would not only make it fair to other types of crafts but more fun and engaging as well.

Anyway, this post is getting really long and although I have other points I could add in response to what others have said, I think I'll stop here.

Again, I am still relatively new to the game so maybe there's something I am missing. But the way I see it, and I have read almost every post in this thread, nobody seems to have made any decent argument against OP's suggestion.

Cheers guys!

 

[Kaemik]

Hey guys. I'm new to the forum and relatively new to MO and sorry if this thread is too old, but I thought that this issue was important so I wanted to add my 2 cents.

To get straight to the point, I fully agree with OPs logic and I don't understand how this is not obvious to everyone.

Right? That's been my general thought this entire debate, and I've heard other people echo the same sentiment. How could anyone possibly not get the solid divide between taming and creature control?

Finally, I wouldn't mind if they made the Taming process a little more complex and time consuming. Not only to be fair to other crafts but it could also be more fun and engaging.
Imagine if you had to go through a training phase for your pet after you initially tame it in order for it to be fully functional for whatever you need it to do. Be it combat, riding or even as a mule.
You could for example be required to know that particular animal's favorite food (not just meat vs plants but more specific than that) and that you would have to give it treats as it performs certain actions successfully. Not unlike how we train dogs in real life.
Only after you have successfully trained your pet to a decent level will you be able to use it or even sell it for a decent amount of gold.
Again, this would not only make it fair to other types of crafts but more fun and engaging as well.

Personally, the thing that most attracts me to taming is the involvement. Swordsmiths hold a button two seconds and out pops the sword. Sure, you need to know the proper ingredients, but it takes like 2 days to learn most of your important recipes in any craft (aside from cooking and alchemy) if your spreadsheet game is strong. Even now that the Mat vendor is gone.

Taming you have to go out, find the tame, tame it (which is sometimes dangerous), check it stats. Potentially release it and get a better one, then level up the tame. It takes effort, and that is what makes it fun. Having mechanics you're suggesting like needing to use the proper food as bait makes it sound even more fun.

Honestly I wish all crafting skills had some kind of mini-game that took a bit of time attached to them. If some of the skills other than taming took some time and effort I wouldn't be so deadset on being a tamer. (Which I am again now that I have a spare account I can do it on without nerfing my main)

 

[Shiroi]

Taming you have to go out, find the tame, tame it (which is sometimes dangerous), check it stats. Potentially release it and get a better one, then level up the tame. It takes effort, and that is what makes it fun. Having mechanics you're suggesting like needing to use the proper food as bait makes it sound even more fun.

I completely agree.

Although I didn't mean "bait" as in something you use to attract and catch animals maybe with some sort of traps or something.

While that would be amazing, it would require whole systems to be implemented that are not currently in the game.

What I meant is simply is to add a training process to the taming by use of food as an example since the feeding system is already in the game.
Right now the system is binary. The animal is either tamed or it's not. If it's tamed then it performs the actions that you ask it to do like attack, follow and stay. If it's not tamed, well it doesn't. It's 0 or 1.
What I'm suggesting is different levels of training.

Think of it this way, if you get a dog in real life before you train it, it won't listen to your commands. Although it's a tamed dog and won't bite you, you still can't ask it to "sit" or "attack" someone. But after you train it, you can ask it to do all sort of things. Like a police dog that's trained to smell drugs or a dog for blind people etc...

Same thing with horses or even bulls in real life. Just because it might be tamed and willing to follow you around, it doesn't mean that it will let you ride it.

So what I'm suggesting is having different stats and levels of training for different types of actions that the pet would perform if trained. And the higher the the level of training the better the pet would perform the action and the better it'll listen to your commands.

Anyway, this is just an example of a suggestion to make taming a little more complex for those who think that taming is too easy and that you can just take an animal in the wild and start using it to fight immediately.

But personally, I think taming is fine and fun as it is. But it definitely shouldn't be under Action skills.

AS you said, people don't seem to get the difference between taming and creature control.

 

[Northern Rooster]

Tamers should not be able to tame aggressive pets. There, I said it. Only then should it be a profession skill. Combat pets should not be tradeable at all. Domination should be the only way to train combat pets.

Please fix SV.

 

[Shiroi]

Tamers should not be able to tame aggressive pets. There, I said it. Only then should it be a profession skill. Combat pets should not be tradeable at all. Domination should be the only way to train combat pets.

Please fix SV.

This is one possible solution to the problem.

But going as far as to not being able to tame any combat pets seems a little extreme.

As long as pets are not tradeable I would be fine with Taming being an Action skill.

So in my opinion, either make ALL pets non tradeable or make Taming a profession skill. Pretty simple.

Cheers

 

[Gronil]

I’m not saying you are wrongbut keep in mind there are a lot of non combat related action skills. People keep referring to action as specifically combat as an argument but active regen, survival, meditation, and all of the secondaries have little to do with combat. You aren’t going to sit in a fight and swimming inherently isn’t based around combat. Neither is gathering or thievery.

obviously it’s annoying that the pet primaries that aren’t related to combat gimp your combat but so do other things. I wouldn’t be surprised if when they add the fishing skill to the tree, it was an action primary. Considering taming and lockpicking are, along with the gathering secondaries and stuff like swimming.

It may not be good design but it’s consistent with how things are currently. It seems like profession skills are only related to construction, lore, material processing, and production. The only profession that doesn’t line up with those 4 things is reading, which honestly I’m surprised isn’t an action secondary.

I feel like with how things are currently, the only fix is making a lot of the bad primaries that don’t deserve to be primaries secondaries. They would need to re-examine what they define as an action vs profession, and completely change the trees if they started moving things about. (Which I feel like is unlikely given mortals history.)

Again I dont disagree that these skills shouldn’t hinder combat primaries, and I’d like to see them implement some solution. I’m going to be pissed if fishing is going to gimp my characters ability to fight in the future.

 

[Minyiky]

Tamers should not be able to tame aggressive pets. There, I said it. Only then should it be a profession skill. Combat pets should not be tradeable at all. Domination should be the only way to train combat pets.

Please fix SV.

To me that is an aweful suggestion, why lock off combat pets to only mages?

 

[Kaemik]

I’m not saying you are wrongbut keep in mind there are a lot of non combat related action skills. People keep referring to action as specifically combat as an argument but active regen, survival, meditation, and all of the secondaries have little to do with combat. You aren’t going to sit in a fight and swimming inherently isn’t based around combat. Neither is gathering or thievery.

Gathering and thievery I agree (though where gathering is is mainly a moot point as all gathering skills are secondaries). Swimming, active regen, meditation etc. I do not. Anyone whose fought in GK recently knows that swimming is one of your most important skills in certain areas. A maxed swimming account has an incredible path to retreat in coastal fights, and you need swimming to pursue, and don't forget we will eventually get naval combat. I'm expecting everyone who frequently fights on boats to have survival (and therefore swimming) as a mandatory skill. Personally I'm not a huge fan of active regen or meditation but especially in large group fights, you can break away and rest up mid fight. It's far stronger than the idea of taming an aggressive creature and throwing it into a fight mid combat.

But yes the system does still need some work.

 

[Komodor]

I see people trying hunter's build already, which means archer/fighter in heavy armor with battle pet. Making domestication tree a proffesion would destroy any balance that is left. Everyone would run pokemon trainer cos it would be non-brainer best option to do. Especially when zoology tree was moved to proffesion skilltree already.